More adventures from Perm...

We hit a record -30 degrees celsius this past week.  We have never experienced it that cold and believe me... you not only knew it was cold...every fiber of your being sensed it!  We went on an hour and 15 minute bus ride to see our Relief Society president and this is what the windows of the bus looked like...we couldn't see a thing out the window.  The dark area is where Elder Dugger tried to defrost a peephole!  Then we walked about 4 blocks to her apartment...we walked very fast!

President Lubova (Lubov means "love" in Russian and she is truly full of love) lives in a very nice apartment.  She has a married son and a married daughter.  She, her husband, her son's family and her daughter's family all belong to different faiths but they have found a way to encourage and support one another in their beliefs.  Sister Lubova and her husband sold their larger apartment and purchased this very nice but smaller apartment so they could help their son purchase a place for he and his little family.

Sister Lubova is an amazing cook and she shared her talents with us.  Elders Dugger and Prestwich loved the homemade pelmeni (cooked pasta stuffed with ground pork) and her delicious salsa made with veggies from their dacha garden.  She also made a yummy frozen salad from strawberries that her family had picked in the forest near their dacha (summer cottage).  She loves the sisters and is trying so hard to develop unity amongst them.  It has been just a little over a year since the two branches were combined and there is still a need to make everyone feel a part of things! We LOVE Lubova!

When we got home that night...we took the decorative covers off our radiators and had the fan blow the
warm air from the radiators out into the room.  Our apartment was so cold!  The hot water flowing through the radiators has provided a comfortable situation for us but when the temperatures dipped ... things got a little too nippy and when there's no thermostate...you find other ways to stay warm!  The next three days I was in bed recovering from a nasty flu that Elder Pocock had just recovered from.  Glad to report that we both are up and running at full speed again!

One event that I missed was the baptism of two very special people...Valdimer and Irina.  They are such a delightful couple.  Our elders met them on the streets and introduced the gospel to both of them at the same time.  They are planning on getting married soon...this will be a second marriage for both of them. We are so excited to think about having another couple united in the gospel as a part of the branch.  This picture was taken just after their baptism.

This is our little Maria...she was on the blog on her blessing day.  She is growing like crazy...two months already.  Here Tanya is bundling her up for their walk to the bus stop, their bus ride and then their walk to their apartment.

 Tanya, Sasha and little Maria heading to the bus.  They are so faithful to brave the cold weather and be at church every Sunday...no car seats for little Maria...no car for Tanya and Sasha!

Remember Michael.  We had him over this week to work on getting some employment to help pay for his tuition.  He and Elder Pocock are such good friends and he relies heavily on Elder Pocock's ability to search the web.  Five hours later, we decided that we had to introduce Michael to Subway.  He had never tasted a sub before...he quite liked the whole concept but commented that he still preferred his Nigerian dinners.

Wednesday, January 23rd, we were at the airport for our final visa trip.  We kept waiting for the ticket office to open and finally found out that the flight from Perm to Moscow had been cancelled.  Thank goodness we had one extra day before our visa expired...so the airline made new reservations for the following day.  Thursday January 24th...we were at the airport for our final visa trip.  This time it happened and we arrived in Helsinki Thursday evening.  Just had to take this picture of the shampoo in our shower...four different languages to explain what this was...Finnish, Swedish, English and Russian!
The world is getting smaller and smaller.

We were blessed with two sessions in the Finnish temple!  It was sad to say a forever goodbye to this sweet refuge.

As we climbed the steps, we passed a handsome young man chipping away the ice and snow from the pathway leading to the temple.  We commented on his hard job in the freezing cold...he said, "It is an honor to be able to prepare the path for those coming to the Lord's house."  We left Finland at 6:40 p.m...arrived in Moscow at 10:15 p.m...left Moscow airport at 1:30 a.m. and arrived in Perm at 5:35 a.m.!  It was a L O N G night.  Needless to say, we took a much needed nap before heading to the church for missionary coordination and branch leadership training.

This is a picture taken from inside the branch.  Everywhere you look, people are shoveling snow off the roofs.  We are getting more and more snow every night.  This weekend is our Branch Conference.  The
Mission Presidency, Pres. Rust and his counselors trained the priesthood and Sister Rust and I shared the duties of training our Relief Society, Young Women and Primary leadership.

After the training, we were invited to go to a Ukrainian restaurant and enjoy great food and wonderful company.  President and Sister Rust are in the foreground; to the far right is President Rafes from Ufa; next is our Branch President; then the second counselor in the Mission Presidency, President Novikov, his wife and little guy from Yekaterinburg; Yulia, our branch president's wife and then me.  The restaurant creates little diningroom areas where you feel that you are sitting around the table at home!  The food was delicious.

This little one was the life of the party!  Part of the seating around the table was a metal bed...he loved jumping... then taking a bite...then jumping some more!

Branch conference was an eventful day.  Elder Pocock was sustained as the new second counselor in our branch presidency.  Our amazing Dima (Dmitriy) received the Melchizedek Priesthood and is preparing to go to the Kiev temple with the branch in March!  Yea, Dima!!! 

We know that this has been a hard winter for everyone!  Hang in there...the long month of January is soon over and with February comes the hope of spring!   We just have to enjoy the beauty that comes with this time of year.  We leave Friday for Ufa to finish the audit for the Ufa branch.  Another adventure ahead!